Demon Boy - Arcade-y Platformer with 50 Levels

[rbelmont000]

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put my own games here...

Description

Demon Boy is an arcade-y action platformer with 50 levels and 1 boss fight. The goal of the game is to destroy the Morbus Lab which is polluting hell. The object of each level is to get the key and make it through the door (original, right?). The Demon Boy can jump, double-jump, and perform an air dash which lets him avoid projectiles. The game gets more difficult as it goes on, but it never gets TOO hard. If you want a real challenge, go for all 50 medals, you may just unlock something (warning: unlockable is pretty meager).

Controls
Arrow Keys - Move
A - Jump
S - Shoot
D - Air Dash
Enter - Read sign
R - Restarts level (handy for medals)

Video
Gameplay Video

Notes
I've been making games forever, but I find it really hard to actually complete them. This is one of the few games I've finished. I started this game years ago, but just started work on it again maybe two weeks ago. I thought that would be easy, but it was so poorly coded and convoluted that I had to code around the old code or rewrite it all together. A huge pain. I don't recommend doing it.

Tips
If you are going for the medals, make sure to look for different paths. If you are missing the record by multiple seconds, it's probably not your speed but the actual path you are taking through the level. And in levels with enemies, it's generally better to try to get past them without wasting time killing them. Though sometimes you have to.

Also, there is a slight glitch where if you open up the game after a save file is created, it'll delete your medals. Don't worry, if you get into a level and exit they'll all be there.

Download

Anyway, thanks for playing! Tell me how it is.

[elmagicochrisg]

Just been looking at the little demo on Youtube and I must say your Demon Boy looks very much like my sphynx cats. But then again, maybe my cats do look like little demons a little... lol

[J T]

The trailer looks great! I'll download and post some thoughts later. It's nice to see some more game developers on the site here.

[rbelmont000]

Someone found a fairly major glitch in the game. I reuploaded the game and it should work fine now.

[J T]

I played this for a bit the other day.

There were good and there were bad things about it.

To begin, the tutorial levels for the first 4 or 5 stages were so easy as to be insulting. I don't think anyone, even the most casual of players needs a tutorial on how to walk left and right and jump. Especially since your game gets immensely difficult shortly afterwards, so it's not really meant for a casual crowd as it requires manual dexterity and a lot of it.

After the tutorial levels, I was loving it! Great fun! Colorful graphics! Good puzzles. Really nice work.

Then level 20. Fuck. What the hell dude? It's punishing. Even when I figured out what I was supposed to do it was too hard. I had to air dash through a tiny little hole between spikes when my character is just one giant hit box. But ok, it's right at the apex of the jump, so easy enough. Then I have to shoot a wave of baddies, which is tedious, but no biggie... except that I will have to do that repeatedly because the level starts me over every time I die and in the part the follows, I'm about to die a lot. Every time I jump down the hole I can't see the maze of spikes I have to navigate below. Enough repetitive death and I memorize where they are. Then I find out that I can't just dodge them because my character falls faster than the screen can track him. After much cursing and restarting, I know that the only thing I can do is to time a double jump before I slide off screen so that the screen scroll can keep up, then air dash over the floor full of spikes after that to stay alive.

It took many attempts, but I beat the level out of sheer willpower. I was pissed though. I felt like this was a game developer torture. Much of this required that I die repeatedly and memorize before I could move forward, so I had like a half dozen cheap deaths. Then after that, the deaths come simply because it requires such precision. I love challenging games- I've passed VVVVVV and Give Up Robot 2, and I'm persisting at Super Meat Boy and BIT.TRIP RUNNER despite their difficulty, but those games make it clear that there is a challenge that my skill can over come and it will be enjoyable. This just pissed me off and felt cheap.

I'm not saying this is an altogether bad game. Levels 5-19 I thoroughly enjoyed and I think you have a hell of good start. The retro graphics are real nice. It's just that the level design sort of becomes rude after a certain point and it wasn't fun for me anymore. Also, there's not real sound effect for your characters death, which made it feel like a pestering interruption with no gravity to it. Nothing tactile, just a glitch and you're back where you started, only more annoyed.

I don't mean to sound overly critical, I just think you have something that could be good here, it just needs to not feel like it's cheating me. Cheers.